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2010 Topps Heritage Baseball Review

Topps rolled out its first Heritage product in 2001 and it has turned out to be one of the biggest hits the company has ever produced.

Each year, there are the obvious tributes to past sets and many times subtle tributes to the set honored are made as well. This year, it’s one of the most popular Topps sets of all-time in the Heritage spotlight–1961.

For collectors who worked on the vintage card set the current year’s Heritage cards are based upon, it almost becomes a game within a game to see how many different ways Topps honors the original.

Here are a couple of examples of the easy to spot tributes and one that requires some thought.

Card #25 in the 1961 set was “Reds Heavy Artillery” and the same card name was used in 2010 Heritage. If the players turn out as well as Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson did over their long careers, then Dusty Baker and Reds fans will be very happy indeed (Bruce, Francisco and Votto are featured).

A more subtle tip to the original set comes with card number 360 Vladimir Guerrero. Vlad the Impaler was for years one of the best right fielders in baseball and the 1961 counterpart was the aforementioned Frank Robinson. If you’re a Texas Rangers fan, you are probably hoping that Vlad repeats Frank’s success of 1961 and wins the MVP award.

The cards, of course, are styled in a very similar fashion to the 1961 Topps baseball set. The boxes contain 24 packs with eight cards per pack. As this review is written, the boxes are being offered for sale online pretty steadily in the $75-80 range.

packaging states that collectors will receive one autograph or relic card per box but this is one of the few products where the “hit” becomes secondary to all the other goodies one gets out of a box.

About Rich Mueller

Rich is the editor and founder of Sports Collectors Daily. A broadcaster and writer for more than 30 years and a collector for even longer than that, he's usually typing something somewhere. Type him back at [email protected]